Outside of Bloomington, most folks assumed Indiana was headed for a rebuilding year. The Hoosiers lost four of their five starters, including a pair of lottery-pick talents in Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller. Most of the team that had ascended to the No. 1 spot in the USA TODAY Sports coaches poll at two different points last season and also reached the Sweet 16 last spring was gone.

Sophomore point guard Yogi Ferrell and senior guard Will Sheehey returned this fall, but for the most part, the rest of the pieces around them were new. Indiana gained a veteran in Arizona State transfer guard Evan Gordon, and two potent freshmen in Noah Vonleh and Troy Williams. Both Vonleh and Williams have contributed significantly on both ends of the court, with Vonleh averaging a double-double through the season's first seven games.

Even though they suffered their first loss last weekend — by one point to No. 14 UConn in a thriller at Madison Square Garden — the Hoosiers have gained some believers. Perhaps Tom Crean has this team ahead of schedule in this rebuilding project.

Crean sat down with USA TODAY Sports college basketball reporter Nicole Auerbach in New York while his Hoosiers were in town for a holiday tournament. Crean discussed his new-look roster, the problem with playing with weighty expectations and what he predicts the Big Ten will look like this year.

Q: Last year's team was full of veteran guys, and you had Cody Zeller returning for his sophomore year. You had some continuity. How did you deal with the roster turnover and new faces entering this season?

A: Everything is different, in terms of your personnel and their understanding of what it takes to win for Indiana, what it takes to win at this level. The one thing that has really remained very constant is the work ethic and the extra work that players put in. That's when you know that the culture is in a good spot. If that goes, then you're really in trouble. But as far as the extra time spent, the wanting to get better, being humble in the sense of listening to older guys … all those things have been really, really good. Then I think what's happened is over a period of time, you can see they're really starting to get that it's OK to hold each other accountable. It's all right to do that. They're pretty thick-skinned. Last year's team was much better at that, because they'd been together longer. I think that part of it takes a little time. All of a sudden, they figure out that your identity is really what matters. Can you do the little things really well, which really are in turn the major things? That's where the hustle game, the rebounding, the defensive transition, ball movement, body movement, reversing the ball, sharing the ball — those things that are constants become bigger and bigger. They understand they can have success with that.

Q: Going back to the NBA draft, what's it like to see two of your players — Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller — get drafted as two of the top four picks?

A: For me, personally, I was still on the phone with one team when the draft was starting — for Victor. I think it's great when it's over and you start to look at the pictures and you start to read the comments and you start to watch the highlights of it, but while it's going on, it's full-fledged work, in my mind. It's not just for those guys, but the other guys — Christian Watford, Jordan Hulls. Especially the teams that had interest in Christian Watford. It's a great feeling. I did not even see it live because I was watching my son play and, at the same time, I was on the phone. But I watched it on tape, and it was obviously exciting to see it.

Q: You coached Dwyane Wade, too (who was the fifth overall pick in the 2003 draft). Every kid you coach wants to get to the NBA. Seeing guys like Zeller and Oladipo go in the lottery must help with recruiting, right?

A: No question. Everyone wants to get to the green room. I've been there as a coach. It's a great place. When you're there, it's about the players and it's making sure that they all reach where they want to be. To me, the green room is a place that you want to get there with your family because you've all sacrificed. You've worked really hard. You've tried to develop your game to the point where the next level wants you. I don't think it's anything different with anybody else. You want to give them every tool possible, put them in every situation, every atmosphere that helps make that possible — but at the same time teach them how to really get there and the accountability that comes with it. The demands that go with it. How important winning in college is. So many young people who want to get into the draft and want to go to the NBA, some forget how important the winning in college is. … We love to go back and show the statistics of how many people past the Sweet 16 were able to get drafted. There are all sorts of case studies that show how important winning is.

Q: Yogi Ferrell (18.1 ppg, 3.9 apg) is obviously a key player for your team. Entering the season, you were asked a lot about him stepping into a new role, a bigger role, this year. How has he done so far in terms of leadership?

A: We see it every week. Really, we see it every day but you can measure it every week. He's getting more and more confident in his ability to help his teammates get better. The bottom line with him is he's only going to be as great as his leadership allows. That leadership has to be (present) in so many different facets. You're one of the guys until you get on that court, and you've got to make sure you're putting them in the places they need to be. You've got to command presence, so you can be demanding and at the same time, there's such a big role for him, offensively and defensively. I think the thing he's learning is when he really tries to get his teammates in a position where they're successful, it just opens up things so much more for him. When he is at the center of the identity — defensive pressure, getting back in transition, pushing the ball on offense, making sure the ball gets reversed — all the sudden, he's open. He's been the beneficiary of really trying to make his teammates better. … He's worked extremely hard to get his game better, to get his shooting better, to have more confidence in having all different ways to score. It's our job to keep moving him around, like we do, so he becomes that much harder to guard and that much harder to prepare for.

Q: Noah Vonleh is another guy who's putting up big numbers so far for the Hoosiers. (He's averaging a double-double.) It feels like he's one of those freshmen — the ones not named Andrew Wiggins, Julius Randle or Jabari Parker — who are flying under the radar a bit. How important has he been to the team this year.

A: He epitomizes what you want the program to be. Everybody knows that he's good; he acts every day like he's trying to make the team, literally. He is such a sponge, trying to get better. He has such a desire to improve, and it shows up. He can be coached. He can take constructive criticism. He's not as demanding of his teammates — that leadership part is not there yet, but it's coming. … We're always trying to find things that will make him go a little deeper into his skill set, and never get him to the point where he just relies on athleticism or he just relies on his post-up or he just relies on his rebounding. He's got to do so many more things. We've already started switching 1-through-5 with him on the court, so all of the sudden, he's got to guard guards and he's got to take away this strength from an inside player. Turn right around and take away this strength from a perimeter player. His work ethic is tremendous. He's a 365-days-a-year player, which signifies that he's a player who doesn't just do what he's required to do but he's going above and beyond and doing it because he has an obsession with it. He's like that. He's done a fantastic job in school, too.

Q: Think he'll be one of the best freshmen in the Big Ten, if not the nation?

A: No question. He's one of the best. I don't know if he's caught up in the freshmen thing. I think he wants to be one of the best players in the country. He's well-aware of what other guys are doing because he's played against those guys. It's very easy to forget that he should be a senior in high school because he reclassified to come out a year early. To me, I think he just really wants to improve. … That's one of the reasons he's so calm under pressure. He's not trying to prove anything. He just wants to get better. There's a big difference.

Q: There's been a lot of talk about those star freshmen this season, and a lot of people talking about college basketball in November because of them. Is it good for the game to have guys like Wiggins, Parker and Randle — who might only be here for a few months?

A: I'm not sure about good for the game. I never look at it as that. I look at the teams. The bottom line is, the freshmen who are getting a lot of attention are on really good teams. That's got a big part to do with it. The thing I worry about is players being put in positions. It's a long season. It's a very long season. It's so easy to put so much on these first couple of weeks, this first month. It's so easy to do that. We saw it happen to us last year. Cody (Zeller) was coming off being sick for days, when he'd missed a game, when he'd lost a lot of weight. We come to New York and because he didn't dominate the way some people thought he should dominate, it's really easy to start being critical. We won the tournament, and we wouldn't have won it without him. He just continued to get better throughout the season. When people start putting expectations on people that they may not be ready for, then it gets people out of character. The last thing you want is for an individual player to be out of character, because then your team is going to be out of character then very soon. … You wish there would be more focus on the great teams and team basketball, and there is. But I think at the end of the day it's here to stay because it's a 24/7 news cycle, and it's not going to change anytime soon. You just deal with it and move on to the next thing.

Q: Conference play is still a few weeks away, but what do you expect from the Big Ten this year, particularly compared to last year when it was probably the best league in the country?

A: I've studied the box scores, but I haven't really watched people play. I think the league is deeper. I think one reason is Penn State is better. Tim Frazier is back. Tim Frazier is one of the hardest players to match up with in college basketball. He's been that way, last year notwithstanding because he missed it. Iowa is the real deal, there's no doubt about that. Wisconsin is the real deal. The most underrated young player in the country might be Sam Dekker. Frank Kaminsky had a 41-point game. Everyone knew he could shoot the ball and could play. You see the improvement their players are making. I think Northwestern is going to get better and better. I don't think there's any way around that. I think Minnesota is going to get better. … To me, the scariest team to deal with on any one-game basis would be Ohio State. They are deep. They have great length. They are so hard to score against, not to mention they have a great leader. That doesn't even take into account how good Purdue is going to be this year, Michigan State's ranked No. 1 and Michigan is a top-five team. I don't think there's any question that the league is going to get better and better. The team that is young, like us, that I think will be a real problem for everyone to deal with in January and February is Illinois. They've got a good group of transfers who are going to mesh well with the guys they've got coming back. It's hard to argue against our league any year, and I don't think this year is any different.

Q: You said you keep track of teams in your league by box scores. During non-conference play, do you ever root — as much as that is possible — for other Big Ten teams?

A: I don't know if I ever really root. I follow teams because we play against them. I think where the rooting interest comes is for your former players who are playing in the NBA. It's more, for me, I imagine I'm going to live and die with my son's basketball games. I live and die a little bit with my wife's brothers' football games (the NFL Harbaughs), things like that. I don't want to spend a lot of emotional energy and rooting interest on those (other college basketball) games. But I sure love to study them, and I think there's something to learn from any film that you watch.

Q: Who are your coaching mentors? Who has influenced your career the most?

A: The biggest ones to me … Ralph Willard. He was in a couple of weeks ago, because now he's scouting with Oklahoma City. He was (in Bloomington) for two days. It was an incredible honor to have a team that he got to watch practice and play that I was coaching. My former coaches that I started with: Denny Kuiper in high school, and Ralph Pim at Alma College. Without question, those guys. A couple of other guys that I look back at who have meant so much to my career in basketball would be Fran Fraschilla, Paul Brazeau … those guys have been big for me. Kevin O'Neill. Certainly, the chance to work with Tom Izzo and what I learned there has been fantastic. I learned something from all of those people. I'm very, very fortunate to have the family I have and have the Harbaugh family to turn to and learn so many things from, too.

Tennessee forward Jeronne Maymon (34) dives out of bounds to save a loose ball during the first half against Xavier at the Battle 4 Atlantis at Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. The Volunteers won 64-49.
Kevin Jairaj, USA TODAY Sports

Florida State center Boris Bojanovsky, right, scrambles for a loose ball against Florida guards Scottie Wilbekin, center, and Michael Frazier II during the second half in Gainesville, Fla. The No. 13 Gators held on for a 67-66 win.
Phil Sears, USA TODAY Sports

Alabama guard Retin Obasohan, right, fouls Drexel guard Major Canady during the first half of the NIT Season Tip-Off consolation game in New York. Drexel won 85-83 in three OTs.
Joe Camporeale, USA TODAY Sports

Duke guard Quinn Cook (2) makes a behind-the-back pass around an Arizona defender during the second half of the NIT Season Tip-Off championship game in New York. Arizona won 72-66
Joe Camporeale, USA TODAY Sports

Oklahoma State guard Marcus Smart, center, is fouled by Butler forward Kameron Woods, right, while going up for a shot during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game at the Old Spice Classic tournament in Kissimmee, Fla., Friday, Nov. 29, 2013. Oklahoma State won 69-67.
Phelan M. Ebenhack AP

Michigan State's Matt Costello (10) dunks against Mount St. Mary's Taylor Danaher during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Friday, Nov. 29, 2013, in East Lansing, Mich. Michigan State won 98-65.
Al Goldis AP

Wake Forest Demon Deacons forward Devin Thomas (2) goes for a loose ball during the first half against the USC Trojans at the 2013 Battle 4 Atlantis in the Imperial Arena at the Atlantis Resort November 29, 2013.
Kevin Jairaj USA TODAY Sports